> 1. Nothing will go wrong 2. Product developers know precisely what they must build 3. Product developers know exactly how long each task is going to take
If your plan is built with these assumptions you are not very experienced at long term planning.
The real reasons long term plans don't work well in real life is are:
1. People don't spend enough thought on strategy before putting the plan together [1]
2. The people assigned to make the long term plan often don't have buy in for the results
3. Most management teams have, at max, a 1-2 month attention span
The most important result of a long term plan is that it produces a collection of important, documented, well understood projects and their relevant priorities and approximate costs.
Thats the exact opposite point to the author’s. Both can be true depending on context, but I find his take more realistic for the majority of products in tech.
You’re suggesting that plans fail due to poor execution, he is saying long-term plans are pointless when you don’t know where you’re going in terms of market fit, design, feature set, which is usually the case (and arguably should be the case if you want to build a competitive product).
Can you give us some context or background of the field you’re in? Things differ quite a bit between a mobile app vs shipyard crane controller software.
The point is that even “proper” long term planning doesn’t work for the former. You never have enough information for the plans to actually materialize, it’s not simply the planners fault.
Well ... in my 30+ years I've done medical (imaging and diagnostics where design controls and planning are required by regulation), enterprise firewalls/anti-spam/anti-virus (again, design and planning critical), more than a few mobile apps, SaaS, VR. So pretty much the gamut.
Long term planning "works" everywhere ... you just have different plans: sometimes less detail on the 3-12 month items, sometimes you need a detailed plan out for a full year or more.
If your plan is built with these assumptions you are not very experienced at long term planning.
The real reasons long term plans don't work well in real life is are:
1. People don't spend enough thought on strategy before putting the plan together [1]
2. The people assigned to make the long term plan often don't have buy in for the results
3. Most management teams have, at max, a 1-2 month attention span
The most important result of a long term plan is that it produces a collection of important, documented, well understood projects and their relevant priorities and approximate costs.
[1] See comments on "Why don't we have a strategy?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32094469